Post Oscar Post

All these screenwriting blogs are posting post-Oscar wrap-ups on their blog.

Can you say BORING?

They're all identical. Oh I thought so and so should have won. Marty Scorcese... what a tribute... About god-damn time! Seriously, did it need to come down to the three most prolific directors of our time getting on stage to present his award for him to actually win one?

They knew ahead of time. No shock there. Why'd they even bother opening the envelope? Spielberg barely even looked at it.

And here I go. Getting lost in the minutia of... well, minutia.

This post is here for one reason:

I like what they did with the screenwriting categories.

Actually reading along with the script as we saw onscreen what was chosen by the director to be depicted. That was a nice touch.

I also liked how it shows weaker screenwriting. For instance, THE QUEEN. I'm not knocking the movie, or even the screenplay. But the scene they chose to show (the queen looking at a deer, while the screenplay described the deer in a rather flowery language) was very average screenwriting.

The scene they chose to show from LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, was masterful. Short. To the point. Less words than the entire description of the deer and yet there is still tone, setup, and payoff. AND... a big 'and' here... the reader understands the meaning without having to hazard a guess.

Huh? you don't make sense. what's your point?

My point is... the LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE section they chose did not need the visual to understand it. The visual was just gravy.

And that's how good screenwriting works.